''Five Tango Sensations'' is a suite of works (Asleep—Loving—Anxiety—Despertar—Fear) for

bandoneón The bandoneon (or bandonion, es, bandoneón) is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It is a typical instrument in most tango ensembles. As with other members of the concertina family, the bandoneon is held bet ...

and

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

written in 1989 by

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

Ástor Piazzolla Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla (, ; March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992) was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed ''nuevo tango'', incorporating elements from ...

. It was premiered in New York that year and recorded immediately afterwards by the

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...

and the composer, who played the bandoneón. The record was one of a set of three internationally tinged albums released simultaneously, the Argentine music of this album being accompanied by the music of South-African composer

Kevin Volans Kevin Volans (born 26 July 1949) is a South African born Irish composer and pianist. He studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel in Cologne in the 1970s and later became associated with the ''Neue Einfacheit'' (New Simplicity) mo ...

on '' Kevin Volans: Hunting:Gathering'' and the music of Polish composer

Witold Lutosławski Witold Roman Lutosławski (; 25 January 1913 – 7 February 1994) was a Polish composer and conductor. Among the major composers of 20th-century classical music, he is "generally regarded as the most significant Polish composer since Szyman ...

on '' Witold Lutosławski: String Quartet''.

The Kronos Quartet and Ástor Piazzolla

In 1987, Kronos's executive producer, Robert Hurwitz, had taken Piazzolla, who was on an extended stay in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, to see the quartet perform. Backstage, after Piazzolla paid his compliments to the quartet, violinist David Harrington asked if he could call him in a few days; when Harrington called, Piazzolla had already composed "Four, For Tango" for them. (The quartet still plays the piece from photocopies of Piazzolla's original score.) p. 254. The quartet recorded the piece in November 1987 for their 1988 album ''

Winter Was Hard ''Winter Was Hard'' is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet. It contains compositions by Aulis Sallinen, Terry Riley, Arvo Pärt, Anton Webern, John Zorn, John Lurie, Ástor Piazzolla, Alfred Schnittke, and Samuel Barber. Track listing Critica ...

''. They continued their collaboration in live performance; as late as June 1990 Piazzolla and the quartet performed together at a festival in Germany. The five compositions on this album, "a musical farewell to life," date from 1989, and were written after Piazzolla experienced a grave illness. They were premiered in New York at

Alice Tully Hall Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The hall is named for Alice Tully, a New York performer and philanthropist whose donations assist ...

on 25 November 1989, Piazzolla having flown to New York to play with the quartet for the premiere and the subsequent recordings, which were done in a three-hour session at the Power Station in Manhattan. Harrington remarked that this was the shortest recording session they had ever done, and the quartet noted a "centered sternness" in Piazzolla: according to Harrington, "he pulled the music out of Kronos." The session with the Kronos Quartet proved to be his last studio recording: Piazzolla, who had revolutionized the traditional tango creating a new style, the ''

nuevo tango Nuevo tango is both a form of music in which new elements are incorporated into traditional tango music, and an evolution of tango dance that began to develop in the 1980s. Dance Origins Prior to the 1990s, Argentine tango was taught with a didact ...

'', died on 4 July 1992.

Track listing

Critical reception

Allan Kozinn, reviewing the compositions for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' after their premiere in New York in 1989, called them "a set of charmingly melodic tangos in which the group supplied an accompaniment to the composer's urbane performances on the accordionlike bandoneon." Adam Greenberg remarks in his review on ''

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

'' that "Piazzolla plays his heart out on his trusty bandoneon, and the Kronos players accompany to perfection." Michael Barrett, in the ''

San Antonio Express-News The ''San Antonio Express-News'' is a daily newspaper in San Antonio, Texas. It is owned by the Hearst Corporation and has offices in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. The ''Express-News'' is the third largest newspaper in the state of Texas, with ...

'', calls it a "work of tragic beauty."

Personnel

Musicians

*David Harrington –

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

*John Sherba – violin *Hank Dutt –

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

Joan Jeanrenaud Joan Jeanrenaud ( Dutcher; born January 25, 1956) is an American cellist. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, she played with the LLP Kronos Quartet from 1978 until 1999, when, after a sabbatical, she left to pursue a solo career and collaborations ...

–

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

–

Production

*Recorded and mixed at

Power Station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many p ...

, New York City **Judith Sherman, Rob Eaton, Dave O'Donnell, Dan Gellert – engineers

References

{{Authority control 1991 albums Kronos Quartet albums Nonesuch Records albums Tango albums Dance music albums by American artists